


Hour of Devastation - Subsummation

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Bolas is Best Dragon, Gatewatch Defeat, Gen, Retelling of Hours of Devastation Final Story, alternate telling, gatewatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 12:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11646828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: The Gatewatch faces its most fearsome opponent yet with the drive and the determination they have always had, but what do you do when your enemy is an ex-god with a huge chip on his shoulder?The answer? You lose.





	Hour of Devastation - Subsummation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hour of Devastation](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/311376) by Ken Troop. 



Infinite darkness, infinite possibility, infinite knowledge. Even if he had lifetimes upon lifetimes, he would never know the inner workings of this monstrous draconian Planeswalker’s mind. The glimpses he saw were but mere breaths in a near impossible to fathom lifetime; scattered moments of time locked away for further thought or vague amusement. There was no need to consider everything of the Multiverse when there were so many more opportunities to do so in the future.

An endless future.

A future Bolas wanted with every fiber of his being.

Here was a god made mortal, flesh and blood, a soul without the granted powers he so deserved. He hungered for the once-immortality of the Planeswalkers, the time of gods above gods. Worshiped, venerated, feared, they had walked among mortals and scoffed at their pettiness, at their foolishness, at their mortality. Bolas had had his own machinations, his own amusements, but nothing had kept him interested for long, and death followed in his disinterested wake.

Now, his interest had reawakened, if only because he saw a glimmer of hope for what he once was, for what he could be again. And Jace Beleren, mind mage and illusionist, felt the amusement, desire, perverse pleasure, and utter terror of two minds made one by a mere brush of mind to mind. For moments that stretched on and on, Jace could not separate out himself from the dragon, his mind from one so ancient and so powerful, and was utterly consumed.

Child, you believe yourself capable of seeing truth? Of finding a path? There is no path here, only chaos and knowledge. Perhaps, at one time, you may have joined me of your own accord, but now, with your foolish mortal mind so concentrated, you have lost your potential. A shame, if a mere pointless shame.

Jace tried to separate his reality from Bolas’s. He could hear the minds of his friends - distant, far too distant - clamoring and attempting to plan and plot, to fight and win, and despite Gideon’s passionate fury, despite Chandra’s naive desires, despite Nissa’s cool determination, despite Liliana’s cold acceptance…

They did not stand a chance. They never did. Bolas knew it, Jace knew it, and it was merely a matter of minutes before the Gatewatch saw why.

Outside, Jace’s body collapsed to its knees, head thrown back and throat aching with the scream that came from it. Even if his mind, already shattered and in pieces and fallen before the great dragon’s inner sight, did not realize the danger, his body did. His body saw what his mind refused to, and the two fought bitterly. It was an internal battle he did not need on top of everything else.

Just a few… seconds… he begged, trying to get together feeble defenses. Without a mind mage, the Gatewatch could not communicate easily among them. The four remaining members were strong, stronger than Jace had ever admitted before, but with Gideon blinded and fear emanating from all, their wills faltered, their powers hesitated.

There was no help coming for any of them. They were supposed to be the help. Jace clung to those thoughts, rising from the dark pit of his and Bolas’s consciousness, and struggled to remain on his mental feet in front of the void that was the dragon. Amusement flittered across Bolas’s draconian face, a snake-like tongue darting out as flames licked the inside of those jaws. Even here, in the mental space few others could understand let alone accept as their reality, Bolas was more overwhelming than any mind before. Alhammarret, Tezzeret, a dozen Ravnican mind mages all working at once… they were mere tongues of flame compared to Bolas’s firestorm.

You see now, Bolas sighed and Jace felt his body seize, his mind frantic to return to it if only to keep it breathing. Jace placed a hand on his mental chest and felt his heart thud, too fast and too hard.

You do not have your precious seconds, boy. You do not even have a mere moment.

The physical scream abruptly ended. Jace’s body rose and the young mage stared out through his own eyes. From beneath the hood, he saw his friends: Gideon, pounded again and again into oblivion; Nissa, vines and elementals alike struggling to survive in the dead Amonkhet desert sands; Chandra, a firestorm herself blasting the dragon futilely; and Liliana, the dead at her beck and call and collapsing just as quickly as they were summoned.

Within this black expanse, Jace felt the dragon’s claws roughly wrap around his mind. Oblivion lay not far behind, or had he already tumbled into it? He could no longer tell. He could no longer breathe. Power flooded his body, his Spark igniting within him, the shreds of his remaining consciousness demanding Planeswalk away before he lost himself completely, before -

You never had any time at all, while I have all the time in the world.

And in that moment, Jace Beleren ceased being Jace Beleren.

Jace screamed, but it was swallowed by oblivion, a false oblivion Bolas had created and sealed him in. Clean, crystal-cut obsidian surrounded him, sealed him away, but he could see through the perfect facets still. He could still see through his eyes.

What… what have you done? he gasped, and was shocked to hear his own voice strangely echoing around him. He wasn’t dead… he wasn’t dead?

I expected better from you, Bolas sighed, and I grow bored of this little Gatewatch of yours. How did so many fools come to work in harmony, I wonder. You have all been amusing enough, I suppose. The dragon unfurled its wings, both in the mindspace and in reality, and Jace pounded the sides of his fists against his prison. He could feel the dragon’s power collecting his own and cradling it like a child’s favorite toy. With every bit that escaped, Jace felt his attacks on his prison grow weaker. He finally slid down the side of the prison, body laid out in the crystalline structure, breaths mere wisps of air.

Shall we see what your actual potential is?

Jace felt his body move smoothly forward, cloak billowing out behind it. It was a disconnected, foreign thing, this physical form, but some part of his mind still recognized it as his, and it was being used. He was a puppet, Bolas’s puppet, that walked with purpose and strength and secrets he had only dreamed of uncovering. It joined the others still fighting but raised no further magic against Bolas.

Gideon, despite the rubble around his body, finally managed to dodge the dragon’s tail and fought to his feet. The Gatewatch reformed, coming back together and facing Bolas, stronger as a team than individuals. Together they had defeated the Eldrazi, turned back undead and demonic angel alike. Still they thought they could win this, that they had a chance. The battle paused, as tenuous as a cliff edge; no one dared breathe.

Run, Jace thought from where he lay. Planeswalk out of here. All of you.

But that was not the thought projected to each of his allies, all smiling at him, all thinking they stood a chance, as the dragon merely looked on with continued amusement.

The thought they received was whispered with just a hint of a snake’s slur: Surprise.

Jace felt his power stretch beyond anything he was capable of. With Bolas’s strength bolstering his own, Jace glowed as he moved to face his companions, his allies, his friends, and unleashed the madness and mastery of the Guildpact, of the mind mage, of the Planeswalker.

Liliana, bless and damn her, saw it before he had the chance to kill them. Her necromantic energy consumed him and briefly shielded the others, surrounding his body and eating away at his flesh, but his body did not react to the pain even as his mental form screamed in anguish. He writhed within that obsidian obelisk even as Bolas pushed the telepath’s body through the mist. Gideon had thrown himself in front of Chandra and Nissa, blue energy slamming into and disrupted by the glowing shield of his invulnerability, but Jace was not the main threat.

Even as his mind magic began to weave itself into the minds of his friends, Bolas rose to the skies. Fire rained down upon them, his voice ringing in the air with his laugh, a laugh that poisoned Jace with every echo. It was the laugh of a monster staring down at ants.

Jace feebly tried to reign in his power, to pull back, to stop himself from erasing the identities of people he had accidentally let get close. He could see them for who they were, their pasts, their hopes, and his power curled around them all like a starving snake. Bolas squeezed and Jace’s power followed suit. He saw them fall, one by one, except Liliana, whose hand was clutched around the Chain Veil in her fingers. Her skin was alit with purple light, the scars in her flesh oozing blood, but she stood defiant… if for a moment more. She shook in rage or pain, he wasn’t sure, and her borrowed power rebuffed Jace though it did not touch Bolas directly. Blue light streamed over and around Liliana’s power but failed to find a foothold.

Do you see now, telepath? Do you see the futility of your actions?

Jace lashed out again and again, but Liliana’s mind held against his power. He almost sent praises to gods he knew didn’t hear him; she could possibly defeat him, stop him from killing them all or destroying them as he had Tezzeret. The others were struggling against both Bolas’s overwhelming strength and the mental invasions they hadn’t prepared for. Yet Bolas did not order the final strike, the rending of their minds, no. He enjoyed watching them suffer, for his own suffering was so much greater than theirs. This was a mere moment when his existence since the Mending had been so utterly diminished.

Then Bolas landed, and one by one, the Planeswalkers of the Gatewatch fell.

Jace’s power had weakened them, but it had never been needed. Even as he stood at Bolas’s side, eyes blazing with uncontained power and body rapidly cracking from the inside out, he knew it intimately. Bolas was holding back; he had no need to unleash actual effort, not when he could simply let Jace bring them to their knees and reach out with a taloned claw to crush any who approached.

Through eyes that were no longer his, Jace stared. His mind was too shattered to comprehend his friends’ deaths; they were not supposed to fall. Gideon, Nissa, Chandra, Liliana… they were supposed to be strong together, even if Jace had known even before this how little of a chance they’d stood against the monstrous Bolas. Perhaps if he had listened to that voice within, perhaps he could have convinced the others. Perhaps they would have made it out of here alive.

Liliana left first, but not before meeting Jace’s blank expression. Bolas’s advice rang around Jace, the speck of him that remained, and Jace couldn’t find it within himself to be furious with her. She was fleeing as he had tried to. He could see the betrayal and hurt in the others’ faces, but the tactician in him knew it was the right thing to do: flee, and fight another day.

Chandra fell to claw and muscle and the fragility of humanity. Though he had never been a healer, Jace wished he could reach out, offer some tiny relief from the agony splitting her from her core. Bolas lifted her up, crushed her, and dropped her only when his interest was diverted to another. As blood welled up at her lips, splashing to the ground in front of her, and Nissa cried out for her to flee, Chandra stared up at the monstrosity of Bolas with her consciousness failing, and finally disappeared into the Blind Eternities.

Jace found himself inside of Nissa’s mind, a distant connection, and he saw her desperation and her relief even as she fell to Bolas’s own version of necromantic power. Amonkhet was his personal mana pool, a place he could pull from without effort. It was simply akin to breathing. Jace twitched where he lay, feeling an echo of the pain Nissa felt and, through her, what Amonkhet felt. It cried out with her and, as Gideon attacked and drew the dragon’s attention, Nissa too fled the plane.

Bolas crouched down slightly and Jace stepped forward, fissures of blue power opening along his visible skin. Blood trailed down his cheeks, spitting sparks of blue light randomly. The dragon stared with open pleasure as the Theros human approached wielding his sural. The few surface thoughts Jace could hear were of relief and sorrow and such heavy guilt, but Jace could not discern the reason for the latter beyond the defeat of the others. What horrors did Gideon already carry on his broad shoulders?

Gideon flicked the sural behind him, his eyes locked on Bolas and ignoring Jace completely. Perhaps it was because Jace had not once been able to completely get through Gideon’s defenses, or perhaps Gideon did not see Jace as a threat; after all, Jace was lurking in Gideon’s mind but aside from inflicting pain had done little else. Jace had to wonder if he had ever been seen as a threat. Had he been able to feel beyond the emptiness and numbness, he might have given the thought more consideration. As it was, holding together the last fragments of Jace Beleren was proving to take all of his will.

Jace felt distantly the rumble of the earth beneath his feet as Bolas pinned Gideon to a nearby boulder. Impotent rage and defeat flashed through the headstrong human as he struggled against the massive claw.

“Defiance even now,” Bolas rumbled. “A failed general on any battlefield encountered, I see. I suppose even for humans some things do not change with time.”

“We will win,” Gideon snarled. In the space between minds, Jace let out a feeble giggle, inane and insane.

“Another falsehood,” Bolas chuckled. His claws began to penetrate through Gideon’s shield, then his armor, then his shoulder. Crimson spilled out but Gideon did not scream.

The dragon gloated. “You dream of death, do you not?” He sank the claw in deeper and watched Gideon’s face contort.

Jace closed his mental eyes, the image of Gideon’s desperation burned in place, and finally felt the energy of a fellow Planeswalker dissipate into the air. Bolas stood alone, self-satisfied and amused. He turned to regard the blue Planeswalker at his side, to the mind trapped within the body, and let out a low hiss of laughter.

“Come along, child,” he said. “You may yet serve a purpose.”


End file.
